October 13, 2006
Free Speech Imperiled II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 02:05 PM EST In my original post on this subject, I gave three instances of leftist thugs—storm troopers without the uniforms—preventing people whose ideas they disapproved of from speaking. (1) The recent event at Columbia University. (2) The intimidation at Smith College until the United States ambassador to the United Nations was forced to withdraw as a speaker. (3) The numerous instances when William Shockley was prevented from speaking by those who claimed “no free speech for racists.” I invited Mr. Zeitz to give examples of rightist thugs preventing, by act or threat of violence, people whose views they disapproved of from speaking. He gives several instances, not a single one of which is apposite. In each of Mr. Zeitz’s examples, agents of the state, acting under orders from duly constituted authority, carried out those orders in ways consistent with the Constitution. They bear not the slightest resemblance to the suppression of free speech by thugs. Of the demonstrators at the 2004 Republican Convention, Mr. Zeitz writes, “In this case, the thug was Michael Bloomberg, who trampled over the First Amendment to please the visiting Republican dignitaries.” Mayor Bloomberg may have erred on the side of caution in giving his orders (I don’t know), but perhaps he was influenced by fear of a repeat of the fiasco at the WTO meeting in Seattle, when leftist demonstrators made a shambles of the city and the meeting, and was determined, quite properly, to prevent a repeat of that in New York. A “thug” is “a brutal ruffian or assassin: gangster, killer.” That is not a description of Michael Bloomberg, even metaphorically. Mr. Zeitz describes Steven Howards as “a Denver man who was arrested by the Secret Service for having the temerity to approach Dick Cheney and criticize the Iraq War.” I have no knowledge of the incident. But the Secret Service has the job of protecting the President and Vice President from harm, not protecting free speech. For obvious reasons, they are going to prevent a stranger from getting in the face of the Vice President, and quite properly so. What should they have done instead? Stood by until he pulled a gun? Mr. Zeitz was not alive when President Kennedy was murdered and was reading comic books (other than Batman) when President Reagan nearly lost his life to an assassin. If protecting the lives of our elected officials requires the Secret Service to prevent some jerk from exercising “free speech” in a possibly threatening manner in the immediate vicinity of the Vice President, I imagine that is just fine with 99.9 percent of the American population. Again, not a thug or thuggish behavior in sight. As for Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young at the 2006 State of the Union address, they violated the rules under which they were admitted to the gallery of the House (no demonstrations, no signs, no disruption of any sort) and were removed, entirely without violence, as a result. No thugs, no thuggery.
Again, I invite Mr. Zeitz to “provide a list of instances over the last 25 years when thugs of the right have prevented free speech . . .”
He has not yet done so. If he can’t give any, he might at least say so and consider why that is.
Peggy Noonan, in this morning’s Opinionjournal.com has thoughts on this that I think are well worth reading.
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